


A Notch On A Bedpost

by Satine89



Series: The Sewage of Youth [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Mind Games, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Sexual Violence, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satine89/pseuds/Satine89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greger Nordegren has made a career out of cultivating a teenage girl-friendly public image, while, at night, brutally and sadistically murdering some of those girls for his own sociopathic delight and to exercise some odd supernatural abilities. The intrusion of a children's presenter into his life who knows all about his activities, and only wants him to "play a game" with him, is... well, Greg always found Richard Brook's television show mindlessly entertaining. Why not play a game?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Notch On A Bedpost

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for a character I used to roleplay with, and now am just working on developing him in this bizarre, seedy Sherlock world. It's a weird little personal universe I'm working on, but if anyone gathers any enjoyment out of it, that's just a bonus.
> 
> I didn't put a warning on this fic, but I'm just going to let everyone know right now: the perspective character, Greg, is a raging misogynist, horribly vicious and violent, and all-around repugnant. He speaks of violence and non-con and rape, but since it's never actually depicted, I didn't list it as a warning. Still, here's your trigger warning.

_Time: early August, 2010._

London, England wasn’t an unexpected stop on Greger Nordegren’s world tour this year. His second album, _Everything You Ever Said_ , had blown up all over the globe, and, suddenly, the grungy, overly sexual, violently sadistic emo pop star was a worldwide name, a widespread face, an objectified commodity Greg was only too happy to oblige this new audience… and to have this new audience oblige him back.

This England tour was three cities, nine shows, and on its last legs. London came after Cardiff and Cambridge, both rousing successes in their own right. The next four shows – the London shows – were completely sold out. Royal Albert Hall. Music was one crazy-ass ride.

For the first time in a long time, his vicious bloodlust was subsiding, the itching need for sex and power subdued. Greg… well, he wasn’t a very good person. He was hardly a person at all, something he’d discovered back in high school, back in the humid gritty atmosphere of Los Angeles. His father was normal, just a carpenter from Norway. His mother died in childbirth, so Greg never knew much about her, but assumed her normal as well. But Greg had some fun little powers. Ways to make people dance, or eat out of the palm of his hands, or whatever was on Greg’s mind. All he had to do was demand a little something out of them.

Greg’s little powers made it very easy to get everything he wanted out of the stupid human masses – just a few words could make a woman bend over backwards, a man tip into him. Greg thought on it as he sighed, staring at his reflection in a too-shiny mirror, his outfit meticulously, uncharacteristically, clean. Being able to tell people to do whatever he wanted them to was useful, but nothing really subdued his most depraved impulses quite like music. And the music was good right now, powerful, reaching out to so many people at once. 

He couldn’t make a crowd do whatever he wanted with his powers – they only worked only in one-on-one conversationg. But he didn’t need them to make the music he wanted to, and didn’t need his gift to reach the legions of disaffected youth who thought Greg hurt and bled and yearned the way they did. Not exactly, he thought, letting a smile crack onto his pale face. He was just that good with his public persona. He ran his fingers through his messy brunette hair, limp and ratty and edgy, against his sharp cheekbones, but he looked presentable. It was the glittering green-hazel eyes, the nonchalant but inviting body language, the way he possessed his skin, that made him look like both the unassuming punk next door, and a rock star, all at the same time.

Greg fiddled with a thin silver chain around his neck. The lack of his usual drive to rape and kill and eviscerate and bathe in monstrosity loomed heavy in his mind. London felt like a turning point already just for that. A turning point for _what_ , Greg wasn’t exactly sure. But he sure looked good tonight. 

Always a good omen.

[…break…]

“You’re spectacular.”

Greg wasn’t expecting that.

The first show in Royal Albert Hall, the show in the most legendary theatre in England – to an Anglophile, in any case, Greg only knew that he’d heard of the venue, as opposed to some of the foreign places he’d played in – went off not only without a hitch, but well enough to put a hitch in his throat as he sang one of his most tumultuous anti-love songs. The audience ate him, and it, up, and Greg fed off of them. He could still hear the little handbells behind him, the roar of the crowd singing along in front him, ringing in his ears: _“Never gonna hold another lover in my arms / another mother in my arms / another boy…”_

Even given that spectacular memory, remnants of a job well done, the last thing Greg expected was for a middle-aged TV presenter, skin porcelain and somehow unmarred, to get in his dressing room and call him spectacular. It reminded him vaguely of a bad porno. But here they were.

Greg recognized the man as a TV presenter through years of touring and watching crazy shit in his hotel room, washing blood off his arms, at 3 AM. Richard Brook, who somehow got onto his boudoir in the time it took Greg to get off stage and piss, was The Storyteller, and Greg, honestly, found the show charming, soothing. He was a warm presence in lonely nights and… um… yeah. He was hot. In a sniveling, genteel way.

But he was on Greg’s dresser, pulling open a drawer with his polished loafers and leaning back triumphantly. Greg didn’t quite know how to respond, especially since Richard’s smile verged on profanely evil. That sure as shit was something he’d never seen him do on TV.

“…awut?” Greg, for someone who used his linguistic capabilities with so much mastery, could sound very dumb sometimes.

“You. Your singing. And everything, honestly. You put on quite a show, young American boy.” Now Richard Brook was looking directly into Greg’s unmentionables drawer. Greg didn’t care – everyone with an internet connection had seen that much. Plus, he was still vaguely in shock.

“…why is Richard Brook in my dressing room?” Greg meant to ask himself, in his head, but spluttered out loud. Richard grinned; Greg went red with embarrassment before trying to make a game plan. Internally this time. He knew what he had at his disposal .

Greg was careful to conceal, in matters with people in the public eye, his mutant powers. His very loud, public breakup with popular Welsh singer-songwriter Tempest Blackwood the year before made him gunshy in regards to paparazzi and tabloids; trying to manipulate famous people with his demands just seemed dumber than shit, considering how many people wanted to know how he was coping with such a traumatic loss. As they called it. Greg really didn’t shed too many tears over losing a killjoy, droopy, ‘ironic’ bedroom partner. In any case, much as Greg just wanted to demand an explanation of Richard, there was no guarantee that Richard wouldn’t –

“You’re cautious. Boring.”

Greg’s eyes snapped up to Richard again. He was playing with some of Greg’s underwear. Raven-haired Richard seemed more intrigued by the stains on the back of his plain white boxer-briefs, blood and semen and viscera –

“I’m not boring,” Greg retorted, glaring at Richard. Those stains could attest to it. That girl died happily.

“Well, right now.” Richard shrugged.

“Sorry, I’m not used to children’s presenters lounging on my desk and playing with my skivvies.”

A coy look, followed by some recognition. “You know me.”

“I watch a lot of fucking TV. Expletive meaning up to you.”

“You do seem to find yourself a clever wordsmith,” Richard observed, putting down the underwear. Greg, still determined to work out Richard’s presence, took of his sweat-drenched shirt and tossed it aside. Richard noticed. “And again, spectacular music.”

Greg got the feeling Richard was a sharp tack. That meant, if Greg was to use his powers of verbal extraction, Richard would probably find loopholes, and worm his way around commands, and all the things that irritated Greg. So he simply ran his fingers through his greasy hair and smirked at Richard. “You sure it’s just the music?”

“Ugh. You’re still boring, Mister Nordegren,” Richard pointed out, lounging back against the wall and crossing his legs. He looked too fancy in his slacks and shirt and tie, compared to Greg’s stripped-down, emo-pantsed look. The professionalism was too much of a contrast to his grungy self. And Richard’s words worked the same way against Greg’s, goloss and polish against his sandpaper and grime.

“…so why are you here?” Greg ventured.

“Funny. You aren’t pulling it out of me. You ruin my expectations.”

Greg froze, half-naked but fully exposed. And boy, did Richard know it, his grin vampiric and bloodthirsty. “…pulling.”

“I know about you. You can stop pretending to be normal now.”

“I am normal.”

“Well, right now, you’re being as ordinary and boring as all of the teenyboppers in your audience.”

Greg took some time to think about this. So Richard… knew about his powers? Or was he trying to get him to slip up right now?

“Don’t you want me?” Richard suddenly asked with a sly grin.

“Don’t change the subject,” Greg barked. An actual command. Instead of addressing it directly, Richard let his grin grow wider, toothier, more dangerous, absolutely sublime.

“…you just got a little interesting just then! Much better.”

Greg paused. “I get the feeling you’re a bit… off.”

“It’s more fun like that,” Richard admitted. Greg smiled weakly, but he didn’t waver.

“…tell me what you want.” The real demand. Richard would have to say something now, something directly related to Greg’s question. That was how the mutation worked – demand something of a human, get that something in return. Most ordinary people didn’t have the brainpower to figure a way around that. But every intelligent person reminded him that there were more than enough humans out there to make demanding random things worthwhile.

“To play a game with you.” Richard sucked in some air, hissing, in apparent bliss. “See? Why didn’t you do this earlier?”

“I try to be discreet about my nature. Tempest burned me well.”

“Ah yes. The singer.”

“But a game. …I enjoy the chase, personally, Richard, I’m not going to take you on this dresser.”

“Not that kind of game.” His voice dropped an octave, entering an obvious danger zone. “It could become that. Ish. I just want for players, and I was informed of your… promising nature. We don’t have many like you in England.”

Greg raised an eyebrow. “You are _more_ than a TV host.” Richard made it sound like he was a crazy super-spy. An arousing, fun idea. Greg liked games. All kinds of games.

“Maybe. Maybe not. The rich can afford themselves some eccentricities. How do you like the _Guinea Pig_ series, by the by?”

That highly personal mention of a selection of Greg’s more secret video collection, especially one so sadistically-minded, shut him up completely. Richard popped off the boudoir, sidling up to Greg’s lanky frame as the singer struggled to regain composure. Well, at least he didn’t mention the actual snuff films he had in his possession… but still, that was calculated. Cold. Meant to garner a reaction. Richard sure as fuck did that well.

“How did you –”

“Trust me, no one cares.” Like Richard could read his mind.

“…I’m in though. The game,” Greg offered as clarification, looking down at Richard. Greg forgot how useful being six-foot-two could be sometimes. 

“Most don’t turn it down. Thanks for being predictable.”

“I’m not,” Greg protested, in vain. Richard was already patting his cheek in a weird display of affection, eyes focused on Greg’s. It made him both vaguely uncomfortable and wildly squirmy. Good squirmy, though. Especially when Richard slid something into the waistband of his pants before flouncing off, out of his dressing room.

Greg barely waited for the man to disappear before taking the thing – a slip of paper – out of his pants, unfolding it and reading it quickly.

07911 846902  
txt.  
Good luck.  
JM

[…break…]

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
texting. hello.  
JM?

Greg waited in his hotel room for a response, sitting, staring at his phone for what seemed like an eternity.

He couldn’t wrap his head around all this – which made Greg only want it more, whatever ‘it’, the game, entailed. He met a television presenter who acted like he wanted him, challenged him to a game of wits, shoved a phone number down his pants, and… touched his cheek. Didn’t give away anything while seemingly giving away everything. Gave him a purpose here beyond his purpose.

He had four nights and three days to work this –

text: Brook, Richard  
(07911)  
You impatient boy.  
Hi tho.  
JM

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
…that’s it?

text: Brook, Richard  
(07911)  
What more do you want? You little perv. ;)

Greg blinked at his phone, reclining into his fluffy hotel pillow and holding onto his phone. His loose blue tank top clung to his collarbone oddly as he shot back another text.

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
i thought we were playin a game.

text: Brook, Richard  
(07911)  
You should be a little more flexible. Take it slow.

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
dont advise me on my sex life.

text: Brook, Richard  
(07911)  
Condoms don’t always work, btw. Ah! Isn’t this interesting??

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
…is the game just an elaborate pretens to get in my pants?

text: Brook, Richard  
(07911)  
Tsk, tsk. Repeating yourself.

Greg wanted to throw the phone across the room, but took in a shuddering breath. He could make this work. Yes. Cue evil glare.

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
theyre already off. 

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
my pants.

And, Greg thought with a quick tug, now they were. He crossed his legs delicately, smirking, trying to imagine the look on Richard’s face.

text: Brook, Richard  
(07911)  
So are mine. ;)

Aw _fuck_.

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
you like texting with no pants on? kinky.

text: Brook, Richard  
(07911)  
Wholly ordinary, actually. 28-35-12. Your first game clue. Find my pants.

And the correspondence ended. Greg frowned, waiting for maybe twenty minutes for something else to come through on his phone… before chucking it across the room in frustration. Find his pants?!

Okay, think. Locker room? Maybe the numbers were a combination of some sort. The dashes indicated some sort of sequence. And goddamn it, he was hoping for _something_ he could jack off to! Too much to ask?

…but there were other questions. Like his repeated address to Greg. JM? It sounded like an abbreviation. …Just Married? That could be a clue. But ‘Just Married’ seemed like a weird ender for a text.

JM. 28-35-12. Huh.

[…break…]

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
is it a locker combo?

text: Brook, Richard  
(07911)  
Good morning. <3

So with that, Greg decided he was on his own with this. He had a few ideas on how to start deciphering the few clues Richard left him.

There were the letters. There was the code. And… nothing else. Greg, pulling a black coat over his blue cutoff shirt as he exited his hotel, had a few ideas about where to possibly start. None of them were entirely legal, per se, but if this was a game, and if Richard knew about his powers, the point was moot. Legality was his last concern.

There were ways to find out about a patron to an event, especially if you were the event. Greg had used the box office of numerous venues to find phone numbers for audience members in other countries and contexts. The box office for Royal Albert Hall was as staid as its empty stage – the people populating it were what brought it to life. As it stood, no one sat around the box office this early in the morning, so Greg could pop into the room and trawl through ticket records. He wasn’t a skilled hacker, but he knew enough.

Sitting in an uncomfortable chair, surrounded by taupe walls, on an ancient PC desktop, Greg hunched in front of the desk, tapered fingers curving over a keyboard. The password was easy enough to crack through, given that it was written on the keyboard in permanent marker (good move); the selling program was almost too user-friendly. When Greg experimentally clicked on one purchaser’s name, he got all of their relevant information – credit card number, phone number, address. Greg only needed one of those things. He continued sifting through the names of purchasers, tediously , seat-by-seat, looking for a Richard Brook.

There was none. 

Greg sighed. He figured this would happen. So he had two clues: JM, and 28-35-12. The second probably wouldn’t help right now – not long enough to be a credit card number or a phone number. JM, though. Maybe they were initials.

Parsing through, he immediately got a few names:

Masterson, James  
Meloni, Jessica  
Meston, James  
Monty, Jack  
Moriarty, James  
Morton, Jenna  
Morton, Jamie  
Mort, Jonathan

\- God, that was a lot. A thousand seats, and about 15 JMs. Well, the women could be eliminated. That left only… seven. That was better, Greg supposed. He had names, at the very least. And, quickly going through every male JM name, he had credit card numbers for those nine as well. If Greg was correct, and if those numbers were a locker combination of some sort, then the credit card would be charged for something requiring use of it – a gym, a payment to a storage facility, something like that. Or maybe it was a locker at a place of work – again, it would be easy enough to determine. A credit card number was as good as a social security number sometimes.

He took down as much data is he could by hand, inputting the information into his scuffed-up Blackberry, before leaving the box office.

[…break…]

Greg was working through pages of credit reports and account statements that he technically obtained legally (you could pretend to be anyone online, honestly) when his phone began buzzing. It clearly wasn’t a note from his team – dress rehearsal for tomorrow’s show wasn’t until later in the evening.

text: Brook, Richard (???)  
(07911)  
Your method of working this out is quite clever.

Whoever this “Richard Brook” was, he sure had Greg wired. Greg sighed before picking the phone up, abandoning his laptop.

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
if youd keep better track of your pants…

text: Brook, Richard (???)  
(07911)  
I miss you, Greg.

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
then show up. im not hard to find.

Greg knew Richard wouldn’t simply come. He was observing Greg, deciphering whether or not he was useful, or boring. Returning to the records, Greg found them all tedious, not enlightening in the slightest… save, finally, for one.

It wasn’t because it had any of the sights he was looking for on it – no direct deposit, no gym, no storage unit. In fact, the only thing on there was the purchase of the tickets for his show. Suspicious… Jim Moriarty. JM. Suspicious indeed.

Greg knew that… “Richard”, maybe, “Jim Moriarty”, perhaps, whatever his name was… was still watching him. So he went through every record, writing down little notes of no value. He had the name, but nothing like what he wanted.

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
i do miss you too.

text: Moriarty, James (???)  
(07911)  
Sentimentality? From you?

text: Nordegren, Greg  
(07911)  
why cant we just have dinner like normal people? :(

text: Brook, Richard (???)  
(07911)  
Find my pants, Greg, don’t get ahead of yourself.

[…break…]

James Moriarty’s address was fairly barren at two in the morning.

Greg had come straight from his rehearsal to the small apartment complex before him, staring up into a dingy window, no light but that of the moon illuminating him. The London chill was almost unbearable to his sweat-slicked skin, but it didn’t matter. This James-Richard character wanted a game. Greg intended to stack the deck in his own favor.

Greg moved up the staircase to the second floor of the building, twisting a bobby pin from his hair into a suitable lockpick. Living in LA most of his life was a bit tougher than one might think; lockpicking was an essential skill in Greg’s old neighborhood. But if this Moriarty fellow was as private as Greg assumed, his house would be the only place he’d be unguarded in. There might be records about. And those records could give him something to go on.

Greg got to the door and, with a few seconds of jimmying his bobby pin into the keyhole, managed to make the flimsy wooden thing swing open obligingly. In the darkness, very little was visible – the faint outlines of a television and a coffee table barely stuck out in the inky blackness.

Gingerly, Greg stepped into the void, his fraying Converse making no sound as they stepped onto threadbare carpet. The coffee table had some papers scattered on it; everything else seemed uncluttered. There was something off about this whole thing, Greg thought as he kneeled down next to the table. The papers were all fairly standard – a telephone bill, a script for the Storyteller show (or a piece of a script), some pictures of a malnourished dark-haired man with razor-sharp cheekbones. …okay, maybe this wasn’t so standard. Greg picked up the phone bill and inspected it. His cell number sure was on the bill a lot. Greg smiled, spacey, slightly flattered –

“Do you enjoy telephone bills?”

Greg jumped a good two feet in the air before whirling around, towards the television. He should’ve expected JM – or Richard – or whoever the fuck he really was – to appear on the television screen without any noticeable prompting. He didn’t. Damn distracting photographs!

“…I was trying to get more info on you,” Greg admitted.

“You did throw me for a loop for a moment or two. I love slant rhyme, don’t you?” Richard smirked a bit before staring down Greg with his wide lizard-like eyes, face remarkably blank. “Most men would think twice before coming into this apartment.”

Greg, still holding the phone bill, kneeling on the soft carpet, thought for a second before smiling ever so slightly. He wanted to test something. “Tell me why.”

“Because I’m a dangerous man.” A quick pause. Richard, Jim, he beamed shortly after the words were threaded out of him. “I love it when you do that.”

Greg smiled a bit, in spite of himself. He got the information he wanted, though it wouldn’t help much. But he also got the thing that made him attractive to Richard.

“I know you’re dangerous. Who’s this dude you’re stalking?” Greg put down the bill and gestured to the photos on the desk, splayed all over. He wasn’t a very attractive man, whoever it was. Weasel-like in countenance. British. Meh.

“…you didn’t demand that of me. Interesting. Jealous of him?”

“No on both counts,” Greg shrugged. “But… if he’s my competition, I might just want to… y’know, show him some of my skills as –”

 _“Don’t you **fucking dare.**_"

Greg’s blood turned to ice in his veins. Jim glared down at him, twitching violently, his mouth contorted into a horrifying grimace. Greg, trying not to appear rattled to the core, simply stared back at him, breathing shallow. He couldn’t hide every sign of disturbance. Richard was a lunatic, Greg realized, and that guy in the picture was important to him. In a bad, _bad_ way.

“Ah,” Greg said, standing up. “So I should be jealous of him.” He made a show of taking one of the photographs off the table and slipping it into his pocket. Jim’s face slipped back to its old amiability, but it seemed forced. Mask-like. Much like the front Greg was putting up now, made of steel.

Jim smiled. Or Richard. “How ordinary.”

Greg moved towards the door gracefully, almost gliding on the carpet. “…his name. Tell me his name.”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

Greg nodded. No little flirtations, nothing about how fun his gift was. Not now. Greg hit a nerve and he knew it. “All right.” He doubled back to the phone bill, picked it up, and took it as he moved to exit. “I think there’s nothing you can do to stop me from visiting him.”

Greg didn’t even wait to hear Jim’s next retort, walking out the door.

What Greg didn’t understand was why Jim didn’t come out from his hiding place in the house. Greg wouldn’t have been able to use his powers if he was talking to a screen – his powers were thwarted by most technology. No Skype persuasion, no texting transference, no phone calls. Jim laid in wait at that apartment to ambush him, but didn’t think to give himself the advantage of leaving. Weird.

[…break…]

Greg wasn’t Richard’s first priority.

Obviously this… Sherlock Holmes or whatever… was very important to Richard. Not sexually, no. Those pictures were neither eroticized nor taken willingly. It was either a very twisted erotomania, or stalking behavior. Jim was stalking Sherlock, and Greg was stalking a specter of Jim.

But it told him a lot, those pictures, that gut-churning outburst. (Greg shouldn’t have admitted to himself how arousing it was to hear Jim scream at him.) It told Greg that he needed to rewire all of his thoughts.

He needed to find Sherlock Holmes, everything Jim was looking at in relation to him. Jim was running two games, one where Greg was pursuant to him, and one where he was pursuing Sherlock Holmes… but if Greg knew anything about living a dangerous life, it was that there weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you wanted. And Richard hosted telly. He’d be barely sleeping as it was right now, no time to go anywhere. Maybe Jim was some sort of genius who could be everywhere at all times, but Greg got the feeling Jim’s pants would be near Sherlock.

Greg, sitting in his bed, pressed his fingers together. He had a sound check at nine am. That gave him five hours before his show to learn as much about that pasty-faced, fluff-haired Sherlock gnome.

Okay. Maybe Greg _was_ a little jealous of him. But he looked like ass warmed over! And those cheekbones, ugh. Greg was hotter. Better.

 _Wooow_ , this was petty. _Reeeeaaally_ petty.

But Greg was hotter. And better.

And he wanted Jim to take invasive pictures of _him_ , goddamn it.

Greg grabbed his laptop off the desk and set to work. Sherlock Holmes would be his.

[…break…]

So Sherlock Holmes was an autistic puzzle enthusiast.

What the _actual **FUCK**_.

Greg was a little distracted during the sound check – today his time was crunched. Second Royal Albert Hall show tonight. His crew and stagehands chalked it up to nerves. He’d been pretty wrecked before the first show, after all. In actuality, he was thinking about what a weird-ass dude Sherlock was, and how his clue might tie into what Sherlock did.

That number did not correspond to one of Sherlock’s meticulously logged 243 types of tobacco ash, lovingly stored on his blog, detailing other detective work he’d been assisting with. It was not a street name or number, as Sherlock lived on 221B Baker Street. Not his phone number, which was also on his blog. Not his measurements, because who could honestly have a measurement of 12? Not related explicitly to any of the man’s cases he’d written up – there were maybe four explained there. Nothing on the forums of his blog. Nothing in the papers beyond his occasional mention as a “tip source”. (And always in relation to Mr. Greg Lestrade. Greg thought for a second that maybe Jim didn’t realize he had the wrong Greg… until he saw Lestrade’s mug in the paper, relating to a series of serial suicides. Yep, they looked absolutely _nothing_ alike.) Maybe, Greg thought, it had something to do with the crimes Sherlock was connected to. Maybe look at the places where they occurred.

Greg found himself thinking about this, wandering around in the few hours he had between sound check and show, ending up at 221B Baker Street accidentally-on-purpose. There wasn’t much special about it. Just a nice piece of property. And Greg wasn’t about to break into it – he noticed a severe-looking man enter the apartment, and Greg was pretty sure the short yet sturdy guy could kill him.

Baker Street seemed sedate. Ordinary. Not somewhere Greg would crack the cipher.

[…break…]

text: Brook, Jim  
(07911)  
The little girls seem to love you ;)

text: Nordegren, Greger  
(07911)  
theyre even more nuts in america.

“Tell me about it.”

Greg really needed to figure out how to keep Richard or Jim or whoever out of his dressing room. He wasn’t wearing a shirt again – all of his stressed, thin skin, jutting ribs, and various battle scars stood out for a ravenous-looking Jim to see. And _man_ , was his smile creepy as fuck, even if it was directed towards his phone.

Greg noticed the more casual clothing – the khaki pants, the loosely-buttoned dress shirt, the faint line of designer underwear visible between the two. Richard put his phone back in his pocket, eyeing every inch of Greg’s exposed skin.

“You sound jealous,” Greg said with a little smirk, putting his own phone down on his boudoir. Ironic echoes.

“You were at Baker Street today. And now the little teenage girls? You’re starting to make me nervous.” Jim, or Richard, reptilian as he was, was also incredibly good at making Greg’s insides writhe. Like he didn’t know that Greg found almost every bit of him beguilingly erotic.

Greg sneered. “Nervous, or excited?”

“A little of both,” Richard admitted, his smile growing wider. “You’re getting closer to figuring things out… A little more… intriguing. Where’d you get that one?” Jim pointed to a white, lengthy scar going down along his pelvis line. Greg knew Richard was trying to rile him up. It was working, Greg thought as he traced the scar with his own fingers, licking his lips lightly.

“A little girl.” Greg raised his dark liquid eyes to meet in Jim’s narrowed, intense ones. Greg smiled widely, fingers dipping dangerously below his waistband.

“She died _beautifully_.”

Jim couldn’t slam the door, push Greg up against the wall, and plant a searing, biting kiss on him fast enough.

[…break…]

The sex was unbelievable. Rough and tumble and fast and dirty and everything real and honest about life, the way Greg understood it.

They’d reached a boiling point – it had to eventually, Greg thought, staring at his now-disheveled dressing room. Man. He’d have to clean this disaster up before tomorrow – they’d ended up tearing out half the drawers in Greg’s dresser, and there was definitely blood on the carpet. Blood. Oh yeah, Greg thought with a dopey smile. Now Jim has a matching scar.

Not to mention that Greg knew his real name was Jim now. Apparently, being called “Richard” while being fucked was not something Jim appreciated. Another dopey smile. Man, he still had the afterglow feeling going. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. Like he was… you know. Vaguely, genuinely attracted to someone. It helped that Jim was obviously a _total_ nut-job, a man after his own twisted charred heart.

But there was still the matter of Sherlock Holmes, and Jim’s pants, and…

Whatever. Greg had semen to clean up. With a smile.

[…break…]

221B Baker Street was a bust. Lestrade’s office was a bust. (The angry black woman who kicked him out was, without question, a bust as well.) No numbers to be gleaned from the house where the lady in pink was found dead.

Greg was running out of options, he thought as he sat in a coffee shop near Royal Albert Hall, taking languid sips of green tea. It was an absolutely frigid day, and Greg, no longer warm and glowing from last night’s manic sex, was bundled in three or four jackets, a scarf, and boots. Nothing was warming him up. He supposed he could imagine all the heat he and Jim created the night before, but then he’d never figure out the Sherlock Holmes riddle. Fuck, his last performance was two days away! Two days, and at a near dead end. There was still Dr. John Watson’s apartment to go to… Greg sighed, taking a deep draught of his tea. His cheeks colored brightly. Heat. Hooray.

Greg began to let his mind wander, observing others in the coffee shop around him. A blonde secretary fiddled with a hairpin as she checked her email on a laptop. Two men in the corner were looking over their stocks. The redhead at the counter was blathering on about a potential date with a man from her work.

“ – and he works in IT, and I’m in the morgue, a regular office romance! Although he bailed on me last night –”

Christ, she was like an especially irritating puppy. Maybe if Greg killed her, Jim would take him next to her corpse.

But Greg paused. Morgue. Oh. Oh my God. He’d totally blanked on those kinds of things! There were even laboratory notations on Sherlock’s blog! His lab. Jim _would_ go there. Sherlock seemed like the type to live in a lab – oh my God and he thought about killing that redhead. What was wrong with Greg? Now he just wanted to fuck her to show his gratitude. Juuust fuck her. Nothing else. Maybe from behind. She was plain-looking, and the plain ones were always freaky. What was he thinking about? Oh yeah, labs. And morgues. And more crime scenes, more than just the lady in pink’s. He needed to get moving.

And move he did, dashing out the door, brushing lightly against the redhead as he swept away. She sure looked at him.

Yeah. He still had it.

[…break…]

Christ.

There were seventeen goddamn fucking ass-ramming _mother cunt loving **morgues IN LONDON.**_

Greg almost had a coronary looking at the list. His heart slid into his throat, his stomach dropped, his balls tightened, his mouth twitched, and, for the first time in years… Greg thought he was going to cry. His hotel room was so empty, so lonely, so… so…

Greg flopped back into his bed melodramatically, as if someone could see – well, Jim was probably watching. Even more infuriating, while mildly hot. Ugh, no, infuriating. He flopped onto his stomach, pulling the pillow over his head and kicking his feet down hard into the mattress. _FUCK._

“…you look distressed. Should I come back later?”

Greg didn’t even want to know how the fuck Jim got into his hotel room. Figures. The one time Greg was showing some sort of weakness, the person he maybe kinda mildly liked showed up. He pulled the pillow closer around his disheveled hair.

“I bet you get off on this,” Greg pouted.

“…and you know this… how?” Jim sounded delighted. Greg groaned.

“Because last night. Can I wallow in my misery now?”

“That’s no fun, Pete Wentz.” Greg felt weight shift on the bed, and, daring to pull away from the pillow, he noticed Jim had laid down right next to him, looking into his eyes. Smiling. Interested. Greg, in spite of himself, felt his heart soften just a little bit. The man next to him was putting him through hell, but Greg felt a fluttering in his heart. Over a man who had a complete fake identity as a children’s presenter. A man who was basically adult Eric Cartman.

Greg smiled guiltily. Yeah, he was kinda-ish a bit like maybe infatuated. “I’m not gonna be here in four days.”

“You’re upset about that? Dear, you can be sooooo ordinary sometimes.”

Greg frowned. “No. I’m upset about hitting a fucking wall in regards to your pants.”

“I have faith in you.” Jim winked at Greg; Greg blushed.

“…I feel like I’m sixteen again,” Greg admitted. “Playing games, lying in bed crying next to a cute boy…”

Jim shrugged a bit, settling closer to Greg. Greg knew he shouldn’t enjoy this… but he did.

“Want me to stay the night?” Jim asked softly.

“If you promise me one thing.”

“Yes, Greg?”

“Don’t tell me anything about your game.”

Jim moved his hand up to play with Greg’s hair, smirking. “I can arrange that.”

[…break…]

Greg fell asleep in his arms.

And woke up in his arms.

It was all very… ordinary. And for once, Jim seemed okay with that. Okay enough to not want to let go of him.

[…break…]

They parted at around eight am, smiling stupidly, despite the general normalcy of the whole situation. The general ordinary attitudes. Jim didn’t kiss him, or hug him, or anything by way of parting. He just smirked. One little gift.

Greg started out with the morgues, in the order he wrote them. Time was of the essence…

But by the fourth morgue, in Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, Greg was feeling a little hopeless again. Sneaking into all of these buildings, getting no hint of anything unusual within any of those walls… it was frustrating. St. Bart’s seemed about the same. Sterile, white, disturbing. Too much like an alien craft. There was no life here. None of the grittiness, or the viscera, or the gore… the bodies got all cleaned up here, but they were no fun when they were clean.

Every morgue so far, Greg had checked every combination of 28-35-12. 28th floor… none of the buildings had a 28th floor. 28th hall. 28th ward. 35th room. 35th hall. All that shit. Nothing.

Greg moved towards the 28th hall of St. Bart’s, not paying much attention to his surroundings. They were all the same, he thought, moving past hall seventeen, White-washed, professional, dimly lit by the moonlight blasting through the open windows. Night had fallen, bringing with it a sense of dread that couldn’t be shaken. Hall eighteen, deserted, didn’t help, either. Greg’s neutral clothes seemed to sink into the shadows as he walked along, keeping careful mental notes about the hall numbers and –

“So we’ll meet up tomorrow for coffee?”

Hall twenty. Greg… he recognized that voice. And his head immediately began to swim.

“Oh – oh yes, yes of course, Jim! I wouldn’t miss it!”

The redhead. That was her grating, nails on a chalkboard voice after all. And the other voice… Jim. Oh. Well. Greg pushed further. Hall twenty-one. Jim worked at a morgue. And was chatting up the woman who inadvertently gave him an epiphany. That plain thing. Hall twenty-two. He was with that _thing_. And had the nerve to act like their little bit of ordinary was something _special_ to him. Hall twenty-three. Well, fuck, Greg wasn’t into special, but here he was, hall twenty-four, feeling like something had been ripped out of his chest, like every bit of hall twenty-five – like every bit of him was being chiseled at, stabbed and hurting and hall twenty-six and maybe he should run to hide the bitterness scrawled all over his face. Yeah.

Greg ran to hall twenty-eight, skidding down the hall, looking for room 35. If there was anything consoling about this clusterfuck – anything to distract him from the fact that someone he was allured by was flirting and dating a mousy little brat of a bitch, or the fact that he might love another person at all – it was that Jim’s presence meant he was close to finding the pants and ending this madness.

Room 35 didn’t take long to get to, not at the furious rate Greg was going. He slammed the door open, glancing in at a rather cluttered laboratory with a view out into the street through the window. A green ladder lay propped against one wall; otherwise, the room was crammed full of test tubes, petri dishes, and microscopes.

Greg noticed each cabinet had a little label on it, a number. Greg skittered over to the one labeled 12, one right under a fume hood, and pulled it open, his lip quivering.

Pants. Plain Vivien Westwood suit pants, slate gray in color, folded neatly, with a note pinned to them. Greg only stared at them for a long while. What did it actually matter now? He’d been supplanted by a soulless ginger harlot. And who knew what this Sherlock Holmes had up his sleeve. Greg leaned back against a nearby lab table, deadened. Maybe if he slept here, he’d be able to stab that girl in the morning. Stab her until his skin was completely soaked through with her entire essence, when her body was nothing more than a satisfyingly empty husk and he could watch the light leave her eyes as he yanked out her filthy putrid whore heart from its –

“You get jealous easily.”

Greg didn’t even look up; now he thought of devouring her heart in front of Jim, blood dripping down his chin. Jim might feel a little guilty for causing her death, if Greg did that. “I found your pants.”

“You didn’t touch them though,” Jim pouted.

“Get that redheaded skank to do it.” Greg finally looked at Jim, and couldn’t hide his shock very well – Jim was dressed like him. V-neck, underwear peaking over the waistband of tight jeans, artfully mussed-up hair. “…the fuck’re you wearing?”

“A mask,” Jim replied with a blank face. “I killed an IT guy. Took his job.”

“And seducing the stage-five clinger is for…?”

“Getting to Sherlock Holmes. That’s his… assistant is too kind a word. He abuses her. She’s a _doormat_. An unimpressive.” Jim inched closer to Greg, mimicking his leaned posture. “Obvious.” He pressed his body against Greg’s. “Bimbo.”

Greg shoved Jim off and sat down on the ground. “I don’t get what you even –”

“Read the note.” His voice dropped an octave, and it dripped with unmitigated lust. Or desire. Something. Greg managed to keep himself steeled.

“Tell me what she means to you,” Greg demanded, his voice as ice-cold as he could muster.

“Nothing.”

Greg frowned deeply. He wasn’t sure how his powers would work with that… did he just have to answer, or answer truthfully? “Tell me if you were lying just now.”

“I wasn’t, you jealous twat.”

“…tell me what I mean to you,” Greg mumbled finally, face flushing.

Jim smirked lightly. “…read the note and find out.”

Seemed they were at an impasse. Jim was one of the smart ones, figuring out truthful, elegant ways to respond to his demands. Greg sighed dramatically, flinging himself towards the cabinet and gingerly setting Jim’s suit-pants in his lap. He took the note in his hand. The stationery was heavy; the hand with which it was written feminine in nature. 

But the message itself was what caught Greg completely off-guard.

_You are fascinating. Congratulations on living up to your potential, Greger. <3  
I don’t want you to leave, though I know you must. I want to exercise some control over you, give you a reason to come back to me. If you should wish equal control over me, simply say the word.  
\- JM_

Greg could not formulate a response for a few moments. He let the note sit atop Jim’s clothes, blinking, his already tumultuous emotions overflowing. He felt no tears, but his entire body shuddered, completely out of his control. Jim rested on his shoulder; Greg immediately wove his tapered fingers through his hair. Product smeared across his hand, but Greg really couldn’t give two shits about that at the moment.

“I think I’m a bit attached to you,” Greg finally murmured.

“You did scar me.”

Greg smiled faintly. “…I want to stay with you, but I… you know. Music. And you… have morgue workers to kill.”

“I am not killing the assistant to satisfy your bloodlust. Others, yes. But she’d be noticed if she was lost."

Greg’s faint smile grew. “Others. You would deal with others…”

“Would you like that?”

The air was far too heady and rich with their mutual fucked-up psychosis, their unstable brand of romance, to think straight.

“I’d do the same for you,” Greg said, in a voice barely above a whisper, glancing down at Jim.

“So…” Jim fished around.

“We can make this work.”

“This?”

“I control you, you control me. Whatever word you can make for this. You know… our… thing.”

“Our thing. …don’t change your phone number.”

“Are you showing up tomorrow?” Greg asked, a bit hopeful.

“No. I’m smuggling a forged painting into London.”

“…of course you are. What do you even _do_?”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

[…break…]

London was a turning point, Greg thought, lying in a heap on the floor of his hotel room, two hours before his check-out time, scratched and bruised and marked and tangled up in an equally bruised and battered Jim Moriarty.

He was part of Jim’s “web” now. Jim was a consulting criminal, he’d mentioned sometime between the second blowjob and the ending up on the floor. He fixed things for others and exercised favor over them. Greg could be special to that work, Jim also told him, before the first bout of extremely violent sex and the watching old Benny Hill reruns on TV. Jim wanted to use him… much like Greg wanted to use him. An exchange.

London was a turning point, for sure. Being the personal sometimes-fuck, sometimes-employee of a madman could only be considered that.

Greg thought about the blood congealing under the nape of his neck, the wounds he’d inflicted, the rehearsal he’d slept through… and everything he’d done in the past week, everything to impress Jim and ingrain himself into the Irishman’s life. 

He felt Jim stir around him, the man’s lips pressing gently on a rough hickey-bruise as he stirred. Greg, hands now disgustingly sticky from a combination of hair product, come, and sweat, pulled the man a little closer to him, by way of saying “good morning”. Jim made a little noise.

“…I missed my rehearsal,” Greg noted. 

“You’re my plaything now, not theirs.”

“…want an extra hand with the smuggling?”

“Oh, I won’t do it personally. Good morning, by the way.”

The two of them lay silent for a while.

“Good morning, Jim Moriarty,” Greg finally responded with a smile. “Plaything. I like that.”

Jim grinned at him, kissing that same purpled spot on Greg’s neck. “You better, Greg Nordegren.” Jim lazily traced a heart on Greg’s concave chest. Again, the haze of bad decisions, corroded morals, and a toxic, ruinous, explosive love made it hard for both men to breathe, or think, or act. 

They were perfect for each other, imploding stars in a world full of darkness, simply trying to stave off the boredom.

Jim’s liquid eyes made it clear what the sheer magnitude of this bad decision really was, staring up into Greg’s dark hazel ones. “You better.”

[…end act one…]

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank my suitemate for editing this for me from its original, very rough form, and I hope that was at least interesting to whoever decided to pick this up and read it. :)


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